


Harvest of Sopron

by Sondra



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sondra/pseuds/Sondra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Zen and Orac looked at the Sopron rock, they saw enhanced images of the type of computer each of them was. When Cally looked at it, she saw her parents (an enhanced image of herself). So, what will Avon see?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harvest of Sopron

As Avon entered his cabin, his gaze was immediately drawn to the innocuous-looking lump of stone sitting on the table beside his bed. It seemed to call out to him in the silence with the force of an irresistible mind, beckoning him to come closer. He approached it with a mixture of eagerness and trepidation, telling himself that the latter emotion was irrational, that he'd meant it when he'd told the others that the rock was the most sophisticated life-form it had ever been his good fortune to come across (themselves _not_ excluded) and that now more than ever he welcomed its company in preference to any of theirs. Particularly in preference to Tarrant's, for the pilot had irritated him no end by declaring that Jarvik was something more than a Federation thug and insisting they give the man a decent star orbit burial as soon as they'd erased Servalan's voiceprint from the computer banks.

Helping to haul the heavy body to the airlock had tired him out, and muscle fatigue was no doubt the reason that his hands shook slightly now as he lifted the Sopron to look at it. Not that he hadn't looked at it before. Indeed, he'd already probed and examined and analyzed every square centimeter of it, but there was a difference between looking _at_ something and looking _into_ it. Especially when that "something" was a mirror...

But why should the prospect of looking into this particular mirror make him so uneasy? He'd always taken pride in his willingness to face himself: Good, bad or indifferent, he looked upon it all with wry humor and detachment. Surely there was nothing the Sopron could reveal to him that he wouldn't be able to smile at or shrug off...

Zen had looked at it and seen a capacity-charged brain because that's what Zen was. Orac had looked at it and seen a highly sophisticated computer because that's what Orac was. Cally had looked at it and thought she'd seen her parents, but all she'd actually seen was an enhanced image of herself. So what, indeed, could the Sopron show him?

A slightly more brilliant computer genius? (He smiled at the thought.) A slightly more avaricious would-be embezzler? (He smiled again.) Perhaps a slightly more _successful_ would-be embezzler. (This time his smile was positively dazzling.)

He set the rock down in front of him once more and fixed his gaze steadily upon it. Whatever it might show him, he knew he was prepared for it. He took a few deep cleansing breaths, let the tension drain from his body and opened his mind...

Slowly the image projected by the Sopron began to take shape. Gradually it grew until it filled the whole of his visual field. Dumbstruck with disbelief, he stood there staring at it.

He'd been wrong.

He was not prepared at all.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

"I knew, of course," said Dayna, "that it was an empty threat", and slid her game piece two squares across the board toward Cally.

"Of course you did," snickered Vila, standing over them, watching.

"I did," she repeated. "I had the advantage of having been inside that antique, after all. No, the only bit I couldn't quite work out was how you managed to fool Zen."

"She didn't know about the artificial Sopron," Tarrant added in clarification from across the room.

"But she knew you wouldn't have let her die in any case," Cally contributed, moving her own game piece.

"I should hope so," the pilot murmured.

Dayna grinned at him.  "It was an even bet."

Then Cally made the move which won her the game. "Got you!" she exclaimed triumphantly.

Dayna whirled around. "That's not fair! You did that when I wasn't looking."

"No," the Auron corrected, "you weren't looking when I did it."

"I'll bet you read my mind, too," Dayna continued to sulk.

"Cally can't read human minds," Tarrant said.

"So she keeps telling us."

"Can the Sopron read minds, Cally?" Vila asked suddenly. Everyone stared at him. "What I mean is, if it can't, then how does it know what type of image to project to match the person who's looking at it? Like when Blake and Avon and Jenna first came aboard _Liberator_ , the ship's defence mechanism took an image from their minds and attacked them with it."

"But what the Sopron does isn't nearly that complex," Tarrant argued. "It doesn't actually pluck an image from the person's mind. It just reflects back a magnified version of their own self-image. It doesn't 'understand' what it's doing any more than a mirror understands the reflections it generates."

"I'm not sure you're entirely right about that, Tarrant," Cally said.

"What?  It _can_ read our minds?" Dayna queried in confusion.

"But how can you know, Cally?" the pilot persisted. "Since you're telepathic, wouldn't you be apt to project telepathy onto the Sopron as part of the reflecting process?"

"That is possible," the woman conceded. "But if the Sopron is completely without choice in the image it projects, how was it able to project an image of me that I failed to recognize as being myself?"

"I think you've lost me," Vila declared.

Dayna rolled her eyes.  "How unusual."

The thief frowned.  "Was I just insulted—or did I miss something?"

Tarrant flashed him a wicked smile.  "You were just insulted."

"The point I'm trying to make," Cally continued, "is that the Sopron is not reflecting our _conscious_ image of ourselves. It's reaching much deeper than that.  Avon realized that Zen and Orac were being deceived, but Zen and Orac had no idea. Similarly with me. Of course it wouldn't be a very successful defence strategy on the Sopron's part if its enemies _could_ see through it, would it?"

"Oh, I get it now," Vila cut in. "It's like with birds."

Blank looks greeted his pronouncement. "Birds?" Dayna repeated.

"Pretty little flying creatures that used to live all over the Earth in the days of the Old Calendar," he elaborated.

"Yes, Vila, we know what birds are—" Tarrant said impatiently.

"In certain species the male would sometimes mistake its own reflection for a rival male," Vila continued. "It would actually peck on windows, trying to drive the other bird away. It didn't recognize its own image."

"Whereas with the Sopron, it's the _soul_ that's not being recognized?" Dayna ventured uncertainly.

"The Sopron mirrors the soul," Vila mused aloud. "Sounds good. I like it."  Then perplexity creased his brow. "What's it mean?"

"The soul is the deepest part of oneself," Cally answered, "the repository of one's destiny and true identity. It means that the Sopron is more clever than it realizes." She paused. "And more dangerous than Avon realizes."

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

Avon continued to gape at the apparition looming over him—though whether the space it occupied was actually in his cabin or simply in his mind, he couldn't say.  Nor did it matter.

"What are you doing here, Blake?" he whispered hoarsely.

The image chuckled. "That's an odd question. This is my ship, after all."

"Not anymore it isn't," he shot back.

The chuckle relaxed into a patronizing smile. "Then let's just say I dropped in to see how you're getting on."

"Unlikely."

"Oh, I don't know about that. It has been rather a long time."

"Not long enough."

"But I've missed you, Avon." Blake's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I've missed your simple-minded certainties."

" _My_ simple-minded certainties?" the other exploded. "Haven't you got that backwards?"

"No, I don't think so. In fact, I'm sure you'll manage to spout several of them before this conversation ends."

"I'll look forward to that end."

Blake extended his arms to either side, palms open in a gesture of release.  "I'm not holding you here."

Avon snorted with disgust. "You held all of us, Blake. You wove a web around us tighter and more malevolent than the one the renegade Auronar wrapped around the _Liberator_. You kept us from pursuing our individual destinies."

"Destinies are rarely as individual as you like to tell yourself," Blake replied.  "You can't separate human beings, Avon. Being alive involves them together."

"That sentimental prattle may have convinced your erstwhile followers," Avon scoffed. "But things are different now that you're gone. _This_ crew stays together for one reason only: because there is safety in doing so."

"And safety comes before everything else, does it?" Blake snapped his fingers, and all at once the space which had contained his life-sized holographic image was filled with an equally life-like scene from the past...

 

 _Blake was tinkering with the explosive device Cally had planted in one of the ship's access ducts, and Avon was standing in the doorway watching him. "Be careful of that thing," he warned. "If the light goes out, you've got about three seconds." Then the light did go out. "Look out!" he yelled and hurled himself at Blake, pushing him out of the way just as the bomb detonated..._

 

Watching the replay, Avon barely had time to blink when he again heard the sound of fingers snapping, and a different scene appeared before his eyes.

 

 _They were in Subcontrol Room Four, Blake pinned to the wall by a deadly and seemingly conscious electrical cable, Avon crouching beside the console. "I'm going to put an explosive charge across the main energy feed," he said. "When it senses what I'm trying to do, it should move away from you."_

 _"Toward you," Blake pointed out._

 _"When it does," he continued calmly, "you move to the door..."_

 

And then just as suddenly as it had vanished, the image of Blake in the present returned. "You were saying something about safety, I believe?"

Avon sneered. "Don't flatter yourself, Blake. When the Altas took over the ship that way, we were all at risk from every tactic they threw at us. It was in my self-interest to outwit that coil, and as I've had occasion to tell Tarrant recently, I look upon self-interest as my great strength."

The rebel leader smiled, but it was a smile ominous with irony. "Always, Avon?" he murmured, and snapped his fingers once again.

 

 _This time they were on the slope of a hill in the thin, icy cold atmosphere of Exbar. Avon had been wounded during an exchange of gunfire with Travis. "How bad is it?" Blake asked._

 _"I don't know."_

 _Blake reached for him. "Let me look."_

 _He twisted away. "Leave me," he gasped. "Watch yourself."_

 _"We've got to get you back to the Liberator."_

 _"Leave me!" he repeated with frantic urgency._

         

Avon shuddered, but before he could even finish reassuring himself that he was only reacting to a visceral memory of the cold and the pain, he was confronted with an even frostier scene.

 

 _He was with Del Grant in an ice-filled room at the polar cap of Albian. The counter had reached 63. They were rapidly running out of time in their effort to defuse the Federation's solium radiation device._

 _"Blake said he'd pull us out at 50," Grant reminded, adding firmly,"We can't do it in that time."_

 _"Are you willing to chance it?" Avon asked._

 _"That's what these people are paying me for."_

 _"Then give me your bracelet."_

 _Grant complied._

 _Avon_ _removed his own bracelet and tossed them both aside with a sly smile.  "Now he can't pull us out..."_

 

This time when Blake reappeared in the present, Avon almost welcomed his return and had to suppress an urge to beg him to refrain from further displays from the past.

Mercifully the rebel leader seemed done with that tactic on his own. "Let's see now," he reiterated, counting on his fingers, "safety and self-interest. Not a bad beginning to a list of simple-minded certainties. Tell me, how would you like to try for three? There must be at least one more in your repertoire of beliefs."

"Beliefs?" Avon hissed. "Did you say 'beliefs'? You know my views on that subject, Blake. Show me a man who believes in anything, and I'll show you a fool."

"Anything, Avon?" Blake responded levelly. "Even honor?  Even keeping your word?"

"Stop it!"

"How about friendship, Avon? How about love? How about trust? How about Del Grant's sister, Avon? Will you tell me about Anna now?"

"STOP IT!"

"Face reality, Avon," Blake barked. "Be honest with yourself for a change."

"Wealth is the only reality, Blake. I told you that once. You wouldn't accept it then, and you won't accept it now. That's your prerogative, but you're not going to drag me down into the labyrinth of your illusions with you."

"I couldn't if I wanted to. You're already way ahead of me in that department."

"What are you talking about?"

"Illusions. You think you haven't got any—which means you have one more illusion than I ever had." He snorted derisively. "Wealth is the only reality, indeed!"

"And what would you put in its place, Blake? Your sacred cause?"

The rebel leader shook his head. "It isn't my cause, Avon. It's humanity's."

"Oh? And just when were you planning to let the rest of them in on it?"

"Avon, no one has to teach a man about freedom. He's born with the craving for it already in his soul."

Avon's facial muscles tightened into a snarl. "Well, in that case," he growled, "I want to be free of _you_!"—and lunged for the apparition, wrapping his hands around its throat.

His action was met with maniacal laughter that grew louder the longer and harder he squeezed. "But I _am_ you, Avon," the voice taunted, and the echo of that taunt continued even after the vision itself winked out. "But I _am_ you, _am_ you, _am_ you, _am_ you..."

With a spasmodic jerk Avon's eyes flew open, and he found himself absurdly strangling a piece of stone. He dropped the rock as if it were electrified, clasped his hands over his ears and sunk to his knees in defeat.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

"Galactic Monopoly, anyone?" Vila invited, gathering up the game pieces from the recent match between Dayna and Cally.

"Go ahead, Dayna," Tarrant said, nudging her. "Here's your chance for an easy victory."

"Talk, talk, talk," the thief muttered. "I can't recall the last time _you_ won a game against either of them. In fact, I can't recall the last time you _played_ a game against either of them. Afraid to put your reputation where you mouth is?"

The pilot pointed a finger at Vila's chest. "You're on."

"I am?"

"On one condition." Tarrant began lining up his game pieces. "We play for real stakes."

"Real stakes?" Cally repeated.

Dayna sauntered over. "This I've got to hear."

"Yes," Tarrant continued. "Loser has to take the winner's next three consecutive night watches on the flight deck."

Vila looked suddenly less eager to play, but before he could say anything, a loud thud startled them all.

"What was that?" Dayna cried.

The thud was immediately followed by a series of sharper blows. "It sounds like it's coming from Avon's cabin," Cally exclaimed in alarm.

For a split second they all looked at one another, then without another word sprang into simultaneous action.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

Tarrant was the first to complete the short sprint down the corridor from the recreation room to the living quarters. Gun drawn, he charged through the unlocked door into Avon's room and stood gasping in astonishment at the sight that greeted his eyes. An instant later his three comrades were crowding into the doorway beside him.

"Oh, my God!" Dayna murmured.

"He's done it," Vila declared. "He's gone 'round the twist."

Standing less than ten feet in front of them, totally oblivious to their presence, Avon was pummeling the Sopron rock over and over again with the broken-off leg of a chair.

"Stop it, Avon!" Tarrant shouted, rushing to his side. "What's wrong with you? For pity's sake, you're not even denting the bloody thing."

Avon turned and looked at Tarrant's gun. Afraid the other man might misconstrue the drawn weapon in his bizarre frame of mind, the pilot lowered it, and the instant he did, Avon plucked it from his grasp.

Tarrant jumped back. Avon looked at the gun in his own hand, turned again to face the Sopron and calmly fired the weapon at it. Once, twice, three times...

The rock now lay on the floor of the cabin in fragments. Avon casually strolled over to his horrified crewmates and handed the gun back to Tarrant.  "Wrong weapon," he proclaimed, gesturing toward the chair leg. "Thank you for the loan of yours."

"I think you really have gone mad," the pilot said.

Avon looked past him at the others and smiled. "Show's over, everyone. You may return to whatever you were doing."

"Avon—" Cally ventured, reaching out.

He put up a hand to motion her off, but met her eyes with his own. "I'm perfectly all right now, Cally."

Vila emitted a skeptical little laugh. "First you're obsessed with that stupid rock, then you make shredded silicon of it, and you expect us to believe you're all right?"

Avon turned to him. "I have no expectations whatsoever as to your beliefs about me, and less interest."

Dayna heaved a sigh. "If you ask me, he sounds quite like himself. It's been a long day. I'm going to bed." She started through the door.

"Wonderful idea," Vila chimed, following after her. "I'll come with you—er, I mean..." The sound of their banter trailed off down the hall.

The pilot was the next to leave, shaking his head at the debris on the floor and glancing at Cally on his way out, as if hoping she might somehow be the one to make sense of what they had all just witnessed.

Left alone with Avon, the Auron planted herself squarely in front of him.  "What did you see?" she asked pointblank.

He stared at her without expression. "What does it matter? The fact is, no one's ever going to see anything in that damnable rock again."

"It was a sentient life-form, Avon," Cally said. "You shouldn't have killed it."

He ushered her to the door. "Try not to lose any sleep over it. I certainly won't."

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

Alone once more, Avon knelt down to collect and dispose of the remnants of rock. He reached for the largest fragment first and instantly pulled back in pain when its sharp, jagged edge sliced through the flesh of his fingers. Cursing, he cast about the cabin for a clean cloth, found one and pressed it tightly to the wound. Red rivulets oozed out from beneath the makeshift bandage, tracing a design on the injured hand like a badge of guilt, and Cally's words reverberated through his mind.  "You shouldn't have killed it. You shouldn't have killed it. You shouldn't have killed it..."

He chuckled perversely, then choked back an abortive gasp as his eyes, panning over the rest of the pile, made an unexpected discovery: The shattered Sopron had _not_ ceased reflecting! Worse still, where before it had offered only one image, it now spewed forth a seemingly endless succession of them, each separate fragment producing its own identical copy.

A nameless premonitory dread gripped his stomach as he crouched down for a closer look, and a cold sickly sweat stole over him as he realized just what he was looking at:

It was the body of a dead man—a dead man whose midsection mirrored in crimson streams the pattern of scarlet staining his own hand.

He sprang to his feet, shaking with disbelief.

The blood-spattered corpse staring up at him from a dozen different segments of sopron was Blake's.


End file.
